


Stubborn

by hellkitty



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: First Kiss, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-14
Updated: 2013-08-14
Packaged: 2017-12-23 11:27:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/925844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellkitty/pseuds/hellkitty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just a little Ratchet/Drift fluffy thing. Set just prior to recent canon events with a side order of wish fulfillment. ^_^</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stubborn

  
There were probably worse ways to wake up than feeling like you’d been sucked through a singularity sideways, Ratchet thought. But right now, his mind wasn’t up to creating that suitably dire catalog. Everything was nominally fine, intact: all limbs responsive, no external data in his CPU, and only moderate radiation exposure. He’d been through worse.

Not sure he remembered much that felt worse, though.

He muttered something, the grumpy sound a mech his age, he figured, was perfectly justified in making in ‘waking up in pain’ scenarios.

A scraping sound by his left audio pickup, and then something that read as a shadow in his fuzzed visual field. “Go slow,” a voice said, as a hand came to rest on Ratchet’s chassis, a light weight, meant to restrain. “Those Legislators pack a wallop.”

Legislators. He could see them now in flashes of memory, the big, blank faces, the massy hands, the dull optics, seeming to fill up all the space they could. He gave another grunt, edging closer to profanity this time, and then cut himself short.

Because he recognized that voice.

“Drift.” His optic shutters blinked, furiously, trying to speed optics booting up. He didn’t need to see to know he was right. He didn’t forget voices.

“…yeah. They, uh, got me too.” That strange sheepishness in his voice, as though getting captured by mechs who fought in numbers and outmassedone five to one was embarrassing.

It was Drift—he probably thought it was. Mech had always thought he could take on the whole world singlehandedly.

“I have some energon,” Drift said. “It’ll help.” There was a little seed of doubt in his voice, that it would actually help, but that was Drift, too, clumsy with anything other than a weapon.

His visual field finally rectified, clicking down into lowlight. Ceiling, above him, dark and rust-bubbled, and Drift, the characteristic finials slicing straight white wedges in the darkness. And the chassis, red-scored from where Rodimus had torn off the Autobrand.

A definite curse, now, Ratchet’s palm scraping against the pitted plascrete floor, pushing himself upright. Drift was squatting next to him, mouth pressed together, concentrating on tearing open an energon pouch…with two fingers. Two other fingers of his right hand had been crushed, the armor of his upper arm stripped back to bare systems, the servomotors spinning in open air. The rest of him didn’t look much better, but Ratchet’s professional catalog was interrupted as the swordsmech held the pouch out to him. Drift’s blue optics were hopeful, but they faded, uncertain, following the path of Ratchet’s gaze.

“I tried.”

So much in those words. And so different from the Drift he remembered, the death-wished young punk down in the gutters who’d nearly died on his table. He’d tried. Which meant they hadn’t gone easy on him.

“I’m okay. Really.” Drift proffered the pouch again, insistent and evasive at the same time.

“Hnh.” Ratchet snatched the pouch, taking a grumpy sip. He did need the energon, after all: he could feel it cascading through his systems, boosting his self-repair. “Always been too stubborn for your own good.”

A flicker of something that might have been a smile as Drift dug in a storage compartment to pull out a first-aid repair kit. “You’re just not used to anyone taking care of you.”

“Taking care of me.” He said it like it was an unfunny punchline, before swatting the battered, broken hands away from the kit. “Lie down.”

“Ratchet—“

“No ‘Ratchet’ from you.” He pointed at the ground, ignoring the way his processor swam as he pushed to his knees. “You’re way worse off than I am.”

“I’m used to it,” Drift said, raising his hands, defensive, and trying to twist his wrist to hide the mangled fingers. “Really, I’m fine.”

“Down.” You didn’t run a medibay for a few million years without acquiring the tone of voice that even the thickest-helmed warrior obeyed.

Drift stared, gape-mouthed, for a moment, before scrambling down to the ground. “It’s really not necessa—“

“Don’t tell me what’s necessary. You’re good at slicing things up. That’s what you do. I’m the one who’s good at putting them back together.” He felt a bit of control, surety, in his voice. This, he knew, at least. He didn’t want to remember what had happened, the assault on the Lost Light, wave after wave of the Legislators, massive, unstoppable juggernauts, lumbering through the ship. He’d hated the surrender, and the captivity. He’d hated the powerlessness. And the unknown. At least during the war, they knew what to expect from Decepticons. But the Legislators, huge and silent, were unknown quantities. Even the ship decking thrumming under his shins was strange, an alien frequency, taking them…some place he probably didn’t want to think about.

But this he knew how to do; this he could control. It was exactly like a medibay in combat: keep your optics on the wound in front of you, let everything else take care of itself. And he felt more stable, his head clearing, just opening the clamshell of Drift’s forearm armor, bending over it to check for damage. He could fix something here. At least for now.

“It’s not fair,” Drift said, sighing, spaulders folded forward, against his chassis, looking down at Ratchet.

“Life isn’t fair. Get used to it.”

Another faint flicker of a smile. “Knew that part long before I met you, Ratchet.”

“Yeah. Didn’t seem like you much liked it then, either.” Ratchet was speaking absently, bending low, tracing the line of a fuel leak up the series of exposed hoses, to where it disappeared under the red scallop of the spaulder. He tapped on the red metal, impatiently, signaling Drift to rotate it aside. It was a small leak, but something he could fix, some little pain he could take away. He couldn’t help it: he could look at Drift, even now, all these years later, and still see the guttermech so afraid of feeling, so filled with pain, that he tried to bury himself in Syk and circuitboosters. Drift had always chosen physical pain over the other kind.

“You know me too well,” Drift said, and there was something in his voice, almost a huskiness, that tore Ratchet’s optics away from the dirty hoses and fuel lines.

Drift had always had speed on his side, so the move almost blindsided Ratchet, the way the hand came up, behind Ratchet’s head, pulling him down, mouth against mouth. He made a startled sound against mouthplates that were soft and yielding, pressing against an EM field that fuzzed like velvet against his. He tried to bluster, pull away, but part of him lingered, almost softening into it, the hardness of his professional demeanor melting to something liquid and unstable.

Drift sighed underneath him, freeing him from the kiss with a lingering uptilt of his chin, mouth curling into an almost-sated smile. “Go ahead,” he whispered, “tell me that wasn’t fair.”

Ratchet frowned, but it was a frown that fought with something lighter, fizzier, inside him. “And admit you’re right? Never.”

A soft chuff of sound, a laugh. “Now who’s too stubborn?” And the arms pulled around him, the damaged one a slim hard strut against his shoulder, tugging him back down, and this time Ratchet didn’t fight it, his mouth finding Drift’s, pushing it open, closing the microtools in his fingers to let the tip pads stroke over the heavier-framed shoulder. He wanted to argue that they were in dank holding cell, being driven against their will to some unknown but likely unpleasant place, and the last thing they should be doing was kissing, but even in his head, things seemed to snap into focus, and letting down your guard, your resistance, and letting yourself be vulnerable, be wanted and wanting…seemed like the most logical thing in the world.


End file.
